My apologies for dropping the ball the last couple months -- it's been another helluva school term and things are only winding down just now!

So, the next couple weeks are going to be a little bit of recapping of things so you can see where I've been (Mini-Z wise) and where we're going towards as the summer season approaches. And to start that off, I kept some pictures from the Tekin race in March that may prove helpful for those new to Mod racing on...

Winter break is finally here for me! So 1) finally there's time to race and tune again and write again, and 2) there's a LOT that I've missed in the last couple months that I should get back to covering. So, without further delay let's get back to business.

About two weeks ago I decided I had enough of schoolwork and took a break to go to Kyosho's Route 241 Raceway (carpet!) for the Fall Classic race, taking with me my MR03 (under the F430 I've been...

...And welcome to the second edition of our series of parts comparisons. This time, it's about top dampers, specifically the Kyosho Oil Damper vs. the PN Racing Dual Spring Center Shock as adapted to my personal car setup. So yes, once again this is going to be strictly my opinion, and I don't think there is a totally superior product between the two of these. So think of today's article as a pros-and-cons list between these two great top shocks.

I am fortunate enough to have owned almost all the MR03 front end setups available, and driven all of them: Kyosho stock, Kyosho aluminum, Atomic composite/aluminum, Reflex Long Kingpin, Reflex Reverse Kingpin, PN "hack" long kingpin, PN Reverse Kingpin, and PN Double A-Arm. Of these, I feel that the Double A-Arm provides the absolute highest mechanical grip, while the Reflex and PN Reverse Kingpin setups provide superior precision and consistency. Since I treasure both of those qualities...

And continuing on from last week, a body comparison that has been done several times before and that I will add one more to: the Lexus SC430 GT500 vs. the Ferrari F430GT. These are by far the most popular 94mm racing bodies out today, you will usually find at least one of each at any given Mini-Z track in the world. Why are they so good? That's exactly what I'm going to look into this week.